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Talk:My Hero/@comment-24712996-20140624224316/@comment-3575890-20140625011552
It doesn't matter what transpired in the books though. The show canon and the book canon are two separate entities; the Tyrion and the Shae from the books are exponentially different people from their show counterparts. What we saw on the show, was definitely self-defense. Anytime a knife is pulled on you is grounds for self-defense. While Shae was technically Tyrion's employee, their relationship was hardly that simple. It was clear that the both of them had genuine feelings for each other. The both of them regarded each other as their significant other and on Shae's behalf it was not because she was paid to do so. She genuinely thought of him as her lover. Otherwise, she would not have been jealous of Sansa. And it is as you said - if their relationship was strictly nothing more than business, she wasn't entitled to Tyrion's loyalty (despite that Tyrion wanted no other woman but her) any more than he was entitled to hers. Yet she was so angry with him for choosing Sansa over her (which wasn't even what happened, but that's how she interpreted it) that she lied on the stand to have him executed. It's also not so simple as Shae's believing that Tyrion would kill her justifying her preemptively pulling a knife on him in advance when she once already conveyed she wanted him dead by trying to have him executed. Tyrion did not enter his father's room with the intent to kill her or anyone. His only goal in mind was to get out of the Red Keep as fast as possible. He did not even know she would be in there. And though he was clearly upset by what he saw, he made no visible move to hurt her until she attacked him, which happened so fast, it's honestly impossible to deduce what Tyrion intended to do before she gave him grounds to defend himself whether that be kill her anyway(which I honestly don't believe he would have done) or walk away and never look back. All we can know for certain is based on what we were shown, and that was, in this exact order: Tyrion entering the room with no idea of Shae being in there, Shae pulling a knife on an unarmed Tyrion, and Tyrion strangling her before she could stab him. There is no such indication that he killed her out of vengefulness. He breaks down crying immediately after conveying that he did not want to kill her. Now the version of this scene in the books, I would completely agree is fucked up being as that he kills her out of wounded pride and there is no knife, but alas, this is not the books. Jaime doesn't forcibly rape Cersei in the novels either, but we can't simply dismiss his onscreen rape of her on the show just because it didn't happen that way in the novels. In that same vein, the added element of Shae's knife changes the entire context of the scene from what it was in the books and should not be overlooked. I would not agree that Tyrion contributes to a culture that condones marital abuse and murder of women because Tyrion has never shown any violence against any woman besides this one instance, that is indisputably self-defense. In fact, Tyrion has always shown nothing but outright disdain towards violence against women.